The objective of the meeting will be to set up a riding association executive and to set a nomination date to democratically elect a Liberal candidate for the Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River riding for the coming by-election March 17.

We do not intend to extinguish the spirit of the North, nor let the Indian Act mentality impose upon the citizens of the North a candidate and a process which is undemocratic and which insults us.

Disgruntled Liberals in the province's north have organized a meeting for Saturday to protest federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's decision to bypass a nomination meeting for an upcoming byelection.

Those involved say the issue has united Metis and First Nations communities in opposition to the appointment of former NDP provincial cabinet minister Joan Beatty as the Liberal candidate in the March 17 vote in the riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River.

The move has pre-empted a nomination meeting that would have seen free trade critic David Orchard facing off against Prince Albert educator John Dorion.

The pair have been campaigning and selling memberships for several months, only to see their efforts short-circuited by Dion's decision last week to appoint Beatty.

This has angered a number of people in the north who see the move as a paternalistic gesture that discounts their democratic right to choose.

Sources say Dion's hand was forced by Saskatchewan Liberal Ralph Goodale, who is dead set against the idea of having Orchard as a Liberal candidate in a winnable riding, in spite of the fact Orchard played a key role in helping Dion win the party's leadership in 2006.

Despite his flair for organization, Orchard is regarded by some in the Liberal hierarchy as a loose cannon whose views on any number of issues might cause problems for the party.

In spite of that, various community and Native leaders say naming Beatty has badly damaged the Liberals' chances in the consituency, which the party won by just 67 votes in the last federal election.

Former Liberal MP Gary Merasty resigned his seat last year and has since taken an executive position with Cameco Corp.

In an interview Tuesday, Bruce Morin, chief of the Big River Band, said he thinks Dion made "a big mistake" by appointing Beatty.

"He's going to lose a lot of votes over this. He won the last time with a slim majority of votes thanks to the efforts of people like us. And now he goes and does this to us.

"This is an insult to the people who live out here. This should have been our choice."

Goodale and Liberal campaign co-chair David Smith have defended the move, saying appointments are sometimes necessary in order to improve gender balance in elections.

Orchard's campaign manager Marjaleena Repo said she expects Orchard to be in the audience of Saturday's meeting, but the issue belongs to the people of the riding.

"The issue is even beyond the candidates. I have this feeling that this is drawing a line in the sand. Or in the forest," she said.

The meeting will be co-chaired by Metis leader Jimmy Durocher, who said he expects most northern community mayors to be in attendance, as well as a number of First Nations chiefs.

"This is one issue that First Nations and Metis speak together on, and they're adamant that not using the democratic process is very offensive to everybody."

Durocher said he also hopes Goodale will be in attendance, since Dion's office has said the decision was taken on Goodale's recommendation.

A spokesperson for Goodale said he has not heard about the gathering and needs more information before making a commitment.

One of his many expressions was "ya dance with the one what brung ya," a reference to the importance of loyalty in politics.

No one should know that better than Saskatchewan Liberals. Theirs is a history rife with deposed leaders and backroom deals that put personal gain above party loyalty. As a result, they remain mired in the political cellar, living at 10 per cent in the provincial polls and unable to regain much of a foothold on the federal scene.

It's perfectly in keeping with that history for federal leader Stephane Dion to appoint former provincial NDP cabinet minister Joan Beatty to become the Liberal candidate in Desnethe-Missinnippi-Churchill River.

He's following another unwritten rule of politics that suggests the ends justifies the means. However, it's by no means clear that this gamble will pay off.

On paper, the idea of an appointment is eminently defensible as a principled gesture aimed at getting qualified women into Parliament. In this case, Beatty has the additional advantage of having First Nations heritage, so the Liberals can also claim they're standing up for minorities in the democratic process.

In practice however, going over the heads of local party members is extremely divisive and undermines the party's strength at the grassroots level, where they need it most.

If Beatty can actually win the March 17 byelection to replace former Liberal MP Gary Merasty, then the Liberals can claim they were right to "bite the bullet," as Senator David Smith calls it.

If she fails, Dion will not only have reduced his seat count, but he will have alienated one of his most important supporters for nothing. Free trade critic and former Tory leadership candidate David Orchard delivered 150 votes to Dion's leadership campaign in 2006, but apparently that wasn't enough.

He's now in the humiliating position of being shunted aside for a hand-picked candidate with absolutely no base of support within the Liberal party. What she shares with Dion is a disregard for the concept of loyalty.

Former premier Lorne Calvert plucked her from obscurity and made her a cabinet minister, even though she had no visibile qualifications for the job. What's more, he stuck with her, in spite of the fact she was regarded as a lacklustre minister.

As for her constituents, she was re-elected as an MLA just two months ago. You could say she had a contract with the voters who signed on with her in the expectation that she would stay for four years. She didn't last two months.

Her justification is that it's impossible to get anything done in Opposition, which is an interesting comment on the value of the role her erstwhile colleagues are now playing, to say nothing of the entire federal NDP caucus.

But the real story here is Orchard, who has built a national base that will follow wherever he chooses to lead. What does he do next?

He's still not ready to say, but none of his options are particularly appetizing. He could quit the Liberals and take his followers somewhere else, but he's running out of parties. He could play the loyal soldier and run in some other riding, but his image as a man with influence over Dion is now badly damaged, which thus hobbles his electability.

Finally, his supporters across the country could attempt to convince Dion to change his mind, something that is happening now. A number of people in the North are frustrated by the turn of events and talking about some public show of support for Orchard.

"When all's said and done, I feel it was an unfair process," says Duane Favel, the mayor of Ile-a-la-Crosse and an Orchard supporter.

"If they were considering appointing a candidate, they should have indicated that a lot sooner. We feel frustrated that this was pulled from underneath him the way it happened."

More than 500 people have bought Liberal memberships in the North in order to support either Orchard or his opponent John Dorion, only to learn they will have no say in the outcome of the nomination.

And ultimately, this may be the lasting legacy of this decision. People in the North are going to remember this appointment long after Joan Beatty is a footnote in Canadian political history. For proof, you need look no further than the riding of Saskatoon-Humboldt, where Jean Chretien appointed Georgette Sheridan as the Liberal nominee in 1993.

She won that year, but the internal divisions it created have never fully healed. Sheridan was defeated by Jim Pankiw in 1997 and the Reform-Alliance-Conservative metamorphosis has owned the riding every since.

There's no way to know if the same thing will happen in the North where the voting demographic is very different. But we know northern voters prize personal loyalties every bit as much as the rest of us.

6 comments:

His ego is bigger than the riding he would represent and he is as vindictive as an unpaid whore when spurned.

Perhaps Stephane Dion has finally seen the light and realized that letting him anywhere near the Liberal Party is a recipe for medium to long-term disaster.

Mr. Orchard's ideas make the most loony of the NDP look mainstream but that does not stop him from using every trick in the book to push them forward. And when they inevitably get rejected he turns on his erstwhile allies, permanently damaging them, as Peter MacKay can attest.

Thankfully, Mr. Dion is smarter that Mr. MacKay and has sent him packing.

Predictions that Dion would regret Orchards endorsement were bang on.Yes, Orchard is cancer.And just like MacKay, Dion used Orchard to win the leadership race, and then kicked him to the curb.Will history continue to repeat itself?Will Dion and Lizzy merge parties and Lizzy crowned?

What is it with people like "ottlib" and "wilson" that allows you to, without compunction, call David Orchard such hateful things as "unpaid whore" and "cancer"? Is it the comfortable cloak of anonymity that gives you the feeling you can just malign him in this vicious, sick manner in public? You sound completely nuts to me, frankly — hopelessly confused, vicious and proud of it.

At the risk of getting more of your venom spewed on me, I'll try a rational question to, hope against hope, get a rational answer from you. "Ottlib," what has David Orchard dones that's "vindictive" to Peter MacKay or anyone else? Wasn't it Peter MacKay who betrayed his agreement with Orchard, and not the other way around? And, "Wilson," in what way is David Orchard "just like MacKay"?

David Orchard is the co-author (with fellow lunatic Michael Mandel) of an op-ed calling our participation in the war in Afghanistan a war crime, indeed he calls it “a supreme international crime.”

Presumably then Orchard sees Jean Chretien and his cabinet at the time as war criminals who ought to be brought up before the international court in the Hague and tossed in jail.He also considers our participation in the bombing of Yugoslavia another Canadian war crime. Contrary to all evidence, he simply denies the Yugoslovia was engaged in ethnic cleansing and compares Canada’s attempt to stop Yugosolovia’s crimes against humanity to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland.This guy is not a Liberal. Or a Conservative. Ottlib is correct: Orchard is political cancer, a would-be demagogue.

Orchard is now trying to sabotage the Liberals chances of getting elected in northern Sask, and he may succeed, but in axing Orchard's nomination bid, Dion has done the right thing for the country.